Medical anthropology in, of, for and with Africa: three hotspots

Abstract

Medical anthropologists offer an empirically rich and conceptually nuanced account of how and why people in Africa engage with diverse forces influencing their ways of experiencing illness and practicing medicine in an unequal world. Expanding the research focus from healers to patients and, since 2000, to biomedicine and global health, they have deepened our understanding of the intricate, though not immediately visible networks of connecting, diverging and crisscrossing healing routes within and beyond Africa. In this review article, we revisit three much debated issues in this burgeoning research field: making African global health, framing traditional medicine, and tackling culturalism.